A student who had been dismissed from law school went on a campus shooting rampage Wednesday, killing the dean, a professor and a student before he was tackled by students, authorities said.

The attack also wounded three female students at the Appalachian School of Law. They were in hospital in fair condition.

“When I got there, there were bodies laying everywhere,” said Dr. Jack Briggs, one of the first to arrive after the shooting in the tiny mountain community in western Virginia.

Dean L. Anthony Sutin and Prof. Thomas Blackwell were gunned down in their offices, school officials said. Police said the third person slain was student Angela Dales, 33.

Authorities said the 42-year-old suspect, Peter Odighizuwa, had arrived at school to meet with the dean about his academic dismissal, which went into effect Wednesday. Briggs said Odighizuwa, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Nigeria, failed last year and had been allowed to return to the school.

Ellen Qualls, a spokeswoman for Gov. Mark Warner, said Odighizuwa had a history of mental instability school officials knew about.